The EZA Community Top 25 Best of 2018!

For me Ni No Kuni 2 was a bit of a disappointment. On one hand I liked the changes they made to the combat (although I also felt it lacked a bit of depth), I liked the town builder that you could take or leave for the most part, the little RTS type battles were cool and the world was beautiful. At the same time I also didn't feel as much of a connection to the characters or story when compared to the first game. I feel like I didn't get to know the towns and villages as much as I did in the first either. I hate giving this criticism, but overall I just wan't in to it the way I was with the first and it felt like a slog to get through a lot of the time unfortunately. Its still a lovely game though so it gets an honorable mention and I'm really hoping we get a third!

Ni no Kuni 2 was a game I had fun with... for about two weeks and then I got bored.
It's a sweet game, and it's lack of difficulty was great since I wanted to just relax with it, but the story and characters just didn't keep me interested in playing it. I did prefer the combat in this to the first game though.

Tetris Effect is a game I have not gotten to play, but it got an HM from me based on watching it be played by others. It's amazing, relaxing and that music is phenomenal.

It's a very fun, whimsical game that has many neat features and mechanics.

Absolutely no push back through 95% of battles isn't my idea of fun, and while I agree it should be accessible to everyone, it should offer options to keep people who do seek challenge engaged. Dragon Quest just handled this perfectly with also easy encounters but also the option to opt into the Draconian modifiers for veterans.

the kingdom is immensely satisfying

I don't know why people praise this. You can't even choose where to put things. You're just slowly amassing the exact same kingdom everyone else who plays is building. There's no real choice involved. You're just grinding up a thing that's preexisting. Even mobile games have better kingdom builders than this.

This is a game made by passionate developers, and to call it phoned in is an insult to the people who poured themselves into it.

Hard for me to see them as passionate developers in this instance when the majority of the characters seem like knockoffs of other past Ghibli characters, the voiced dialogue cuts off randomly during interactions with seemingly no cohesion or thought put into it, not only is the combat difficulty snoreville but it is wildly unbalanced to the point where you don't have to think whatsoever for any fight unless it is a boss or those corrupted monsters that are the polar opposite end of the scale suddenly which kind of undoes what good you could say about it being so easy everywhere else, then you have none of the animated cutscenes that originally made the series popular this time, and tie the package together with a very bland mascot character this time around. Yeah I'm not feeling any passion in this one, which is a shame, because I know Level-5 can be passionate. I've seen them do better.

@axel I had a real good time with Torna, so much so that I probably would've put it at my 3 spot easily when I was halfway through this game, but by the end of it some things just tanked it for me compared to other stuff I played last year. Maybe this is my own fault, but I expected more titans and the game to begin in an earlier place than it did. While the game is good at getting you in and equipped with your party, it also brushes over Adam's past and how he meets up with Mythra, which is all stuff I was very interested in seeing for myself after the main game hinted so much at these events. No doubt Torna has some of the best music from any game last year, but sadly it is such a small number of tracks that by the end of it you get tired of hearing the same ones over and over. Those gripes are just small potatoes though, compared to the gauntlet of side quests the game forces you to slog through before you're allowed to reach one of the best endings I've ever seen in any video game, ever. It kills the pace. It makes very little sense contextually. It didn't need to be part of the game. 2018 was just too strong with contenders for me to look past that glaring flaw, no matter how much I love the things this game did do right and personally don't mind doing lots of side quests. Keep them optional. Don't bloat your game.

Outside of it being announced during the direct, I didn't hear a thing about Torna the Golden Country except for maybe I think it was talked about during the Best Music portion of the deliberations. A substantial addition to Xenoblade Chronicles 2 for sure, particularly when the base game has so much in it, it obviously did enough to warrant its place on the list.

@mbun Listen, I'm not gonna try and argue with you, I just have a problem when people try to insinuate that a developer doesn't care. If you don't like how things turned out, or don't agree with with the dev's vision, that's fine, but it's a real crappy thing to do to discount the work of a bunch of people. People who spent an inordinate amount of time making something for the enjoyment of others.

I just have a problem when people try to insinuate that a developer doesn't care.

But what if they didn't? What if this was just a paycheck to them? You don't factually know they cared anymore than I assume they didn't given the quality of the product we received at the end of the day.

it's a real crappy thing to do to discount the work of a bunch of people.

Well, sometimes that's just how criticism works. If the end product is a mess, it is natural to assume there's reasons for it being a mess. We haven't heard any development or budget trouble stories come out yet. Ghibli seemed to not want any involvement making cutscenes this time around either. I really think they just didn't care, probably because a higherup or someone outside the studio made the decision to do a sequel in the first place, and nobody on the team was really enthusiastic about it. That's just my own speculation sure, but that's the best educated guess I can make given what we received.

People who spent an inordinate amount of time making something for the enjoyment of others.

Or maybe they're just devs at a studio making a game they were told to make because that is their job and you're just putting them on a pedestal? Not everyone is blessed to always have the privilege of working on a passion project. Sometimes work is just work, and that is no different in the realm of video game development. Wouldn't be the first time, and it certainly won't be the last. Also, would you really defend criticism aimed at someone in another industry less if their job was less long per project and not in the entertainment realm? Since you have no interest defending the game and would rather preach semantics of criticism, I don't believe there's anymore of a conversation to have here. Guess you could make your own thread if you want to impose your ideology of groups too sacred to complain about, but this isn't the place for it.

But what if they didn't? What if this was just a paycheck to them? You don't factually know they cared anymore than I assume they didn't given the quality of the product we received at the end of the day.

Calm down, dude. Caring about your project is not the same as the quality of the result. I have a lot of issues with the quality of The Missing, but I feel that it was a passionate project for the team. Also many people work on a game, so even if you have some problems with several aspects of the game, it doesn't mean that every member of the team didn't care about results. And there are people who enjoyed this game (including Damiani), so this team must done at least something right.

@ffff0 Just offering my take on it given the disparity between the previous games in the series and this one. Like I said above, nothing has come out about trouble during development or with budget.

Also many people work on a game, so even if you have some problems with several aspects of the game, it doesn't mean that every member of the team didn't care about results.

Sure, and the larger the team the less I think you'd find a project absolutely nobody cared about, but that's not what I'm talking about. I used the words phoned in, as in fine with creating something mediocre that would pass without losing the studio money or getting anyone on the team in trouble while lacking passion and a vision.

there are people who enjoyed this game (including Damiani), so this team must done at least something right.

You'll always be able to find people who enjoy anything for various reasons because different things appeal to different people, and some people are more forgiving or less bothered by flaws than others. Having a beloved art style accompanying also doesn't hurt either.

I didn't really hesitate in putting Torna as my number one for the year, it just stood out that much despite technically being just DLC, it's competition across the year was just weak and few and far between.

I don't have much interest in the rest of the countdown now, but thanks to Bigdude, Danjin and Cweeny for also giving this DLC a shout out.

FYI @Mbun they did add three difficulty modes to Ni no Kuni 2, with appropriate modifiers for each, i.e. better rewards. I started on the medium one recently and have been getting my butt handed to me on the first Kingmaker trial boss.

@el-shmiablo
Did you play it with surround sound headphones on?
I literally lost a whole day to Tetris in VR and didn't know it, I'll just try it for a few minutes I said. 8 hours later I finally manage to pull myself away from it thinking it had only been a few minutes.

I played NNK2 before the difficulty update and I remember it being really easy up until a point where I had to stop and randomly grind levels in order to progress, so hopefully they balanced that better as well.

I really loved Ni No Kuni 2, so much so, I platinum'd the thing. While the story isn't anything special and the cast of characters isn't especially strong, the exploration, towns, kingdom building, music, and combat mechanics (on harder difficulties) are all really fantastic. In a world without Suikoden, Ni No Kuni 2 is the closest thing we have to building an empire filled with named characters that all have personalities and personal quests. Absolutely jolly and wonderful game, one where the passion and care for it was made very clear to me.

they did add three difficulty modes to Ni no Kuni 2, with appropriate modifiers for each

Oh, I'm aware. Damiani streamed them back when they were added, but they're still trash. Still wild swings between way too easy normal enemies and absurdly tough bosses and corrupted enemies for no reason. Doesn't hold a candle to Draconian in Dragon Quest where it is actually balanced or the wealth of modifiers Xenoblade Chronicles 2 lets you tweak to what you like as a player. Felt like a cheap way of claiming they fixed a problem without actually fixing it.

Wait when did Xeno2 get difficulty modifiers?
Guess it's time to hop back to it, got to the point where the giant monster thing eats the party before work and life threw a few curve balls.
Tried going back to it before the Torna DLC came out (need to get) but kinda forgot how to do everything